Heather Shouse Gives A Rare Four Star Barbecue Review to Lillie’s Q

At the “hipster/yuppie divide of Wicker Park/Bucktown”Photo: Nick Kindelsperger

If you want to get a good review on a barbecue restaurant in Chicago from Time Out you have to go through Heather Shouse, and she is tough. She has reviewed every new barbecue opening this year (remember there have been a lot), and she’s panned them all (Smokey Bears, The Pork Shoppe, and Brand BBQ). “There’s barbecue in this town that would get a man exiled from his family if he served it in Memphis, Kansas City or Austin,” she proclaimed after visiting Brand BBQ. So it is with great astonishment that Shouse gives a positively glowing review to Lillie’s Q, awarding it four out of five stars and announcing that “this man has a hit on his hands.”

That man is Charlie McKenna, a high end chef who worked for three years at Avenues. Though she was deeply skeptical at first, only the ribs fail to win her over completely, though they are still “better than 90 percent of what’s out there.” The pork shoulder is so good it “doesn’t need sauce.” But she even loves the sauces! “All five of the housemade sauces are lappable.” She even digs the appetizers, which are “good enough that I’ve already been back twice to have them at the bar as beer snacks.”

Best of all is the tri-tip, which “will be for Lillie’s what the brisket was for Smoque—the gavel to squash any case of Skepticism.”